August 7th – 1pm -5pm

Chapters Bayview Village

2901 Bayview Ave Unit 132

North York, Ontario

M2K 1E6

August 21st 1pm-5pm

Chapters Woodbridge

East Woodbridge Centre, 3900 Hwy 7 West, Unit 1

Woodbridge, Ontario

L4L 1A6

(905)264-6401

August 28th 1pm – 5pm

Indigo Richmond Hill

8705 Yonge Street

Richmond Hill, Ontario

L4C 6Z1

(905)731-8771

September 25th 1pm-5pm

Chapters Woodbridge

East Woodbridge Centre, 3900 Hwy 7 West, Unit 1

Woodbridge, Ontario

L4L 1A6

(905)264-6401

Indigo Yonge and Eglinton – Coming Soon!

Chapters Square One – Coming Soon!

Here is a list of ways that you can enhance your money relationship.  Ask your self how you can treat your money better to enhance your commitment to it?

1. Do you always get the highest level of interest from idle money?  Making sure that your money is always getting the highest return is a way to treat it properly.  If you have money sitting in an account and not making a good interest return search for the best premium rate savings account and transfer that money!

2. Are you being charged for having too many bank accounts? Do you go down a block to save other ATM fees?  Do you pay a monthly fee when there is a way to keep a minimum deposit to save that amount?  If you’re charged 8.95 a month in your bank account and it  takes a minimum monthly balance of $1,500 a month to wave that fee – that is a $107.40 savigngs a year equivalent to a 7% return on $1,500.

3. Do you always scan your statements to make sure that you aren’t “dinged” any extra charges?  I’ve saved hundreds of dollars by doing just this to every bill that comes through my door.  It shows that you love your money if you’re always watching out for it.  

4. Do you know what your net worth is right now?  If you don’t add up all of your assets and minus your liabilities.  Knowing how much you are worth will help you make big picture purchases and investments.  It’ll help you keep moving towards your net worth goal! 

5. How much interest are you paying on all of your debts?  Can you lower your interest rates right now and save loads of money?  Put in the time and call your credit card company, bank or loan company.  See how much you can save by lowering your interest rates, increasing your payment amount or payment frequency.  On mortgages these changes add up to a ton of cash. Treat your money like any other relationship and benefit!  

Have a great week,

Dave

1. Keep Calm, and Carry On.  The worst thing to do in markets like yesterday is to give into your fear.  Keep rational.  CBNC and BNN are all about the story and fear sells advertising and markets.  Keep your head in a good place.  Tomorrow is another day.  Take advantage of opportunities instead of running from them. 

2. Zen Zone.  Before every trading day I think about those days when I was quit witted, making good decisions, and profiting.  I remember what I was thinking that day, what my motivations were and how if felt at the end of the day when I had made all of the right decisions.  Starting that day in the “zone” is crucial to keep you on the ball. 

3. Keep Your Eye on the Ball.  Remember what your ultimate objective is and write it on a piece of paper and keep in in view.  If it is capital preservation, short term gain, or yield for the long haul, or other write it down.  When you process information when the market is crappy you’ll keep your eye on the ball and take actions to support what you want to achieve.  

4. Why do you want it?  Why do you really want the money that you’re making?  Is it family? freedom? security? achievement? or fun?  Anchor yourself to your desired future enjoying the money and re-enforce why you are going to make it or make more of it.  What that money will actually do for you and what happiness it will bring you.  

5. Celebrate!  When you’re a star in the market. Make sure you recognize it and reward yourself for being such a champ.  Re-enforce your positive actions while investing and you’ll repeat them in the future to make even more money. And you know how I love making more money.

Have an amazing week,

Dave

I love money. I’ve always loved money. Loving money has allowed me to start my own ideal coaching business, buy my dream car for FREE, horseback ride every Thursday, travel more, and spend time with the people in my life I truly love. You should live your ideal life too.  This book will teach you how to dream your ultimate life then realize it by allocating the financial resources. Learn to optimize everything financial in the following book chapters:

1. Love Your Money – Simplify Your Financial Life
2. Live Like You’re Already Rich – How to become wealth like rich people do
3. Setting Goals For Your Ultimate Life – Dream your ultimate life than live it
4. Budgeting For Your Goals – How to track and save to pump back into your happiness
5. How to Use Money and Credit – How to win by using cash and cards
6. Investment Portfolios – How to build a zero dollar portfolio
7. Wealth Equals Income Steams – True wealth is built on multiple streams of income and how you can do it!
8. Mortgages and Loans – How to borrow to benefit you and save tens of thousands on your current mortgage
9. Insurance – How to only buy what you need!
10. Shopping – How to shop like a pro and save
11. Money and Relationships – How to pick the perfect money match
12. Financial Checkups – How will you know when you’re wealth?

Love your money and it’ll love you back with an Ah-mazing life!

Dave

1. Set your payments from monthly to bi-weekly–or even better weekly. Bi-weekly payment means you make one extra payment per year compared to monthly. Over the amortization time of your mortgage these extra payments will save you thousands.  
 2. Round up your payments. If your bi-weekly payments are $829.68, for example, round them up to $900. The extra $70.32 bi-weekly will save you even more over the amortization of your mortgage.  

It is so hard to step away from your prime minus variable rates when they are so low. I had a rate of prime -.85 before I sold my place. If you do decide to stick to your variable rate and hope that interest rates climb slowly over the next few years, increase your payments so that you are making the payments that you would be in a five year fixed. There are two advantages to this:

1. You will be paying down your principal very quickly, which will equal less principal to pay back when rates go back up. It will save you bundles in the long run.  
2. You’ll also be used to the payments at a higher interest rate. When you need to renew or decide to go with a fixed rate, you’ll have a few years of already making payments at that higher rate.  
 
Try out some of the mortgage calculators online like the one below to see how much interest you save with the different options, along with how many years you’ll “bump off” your amortization, instead of it bumping you off. And mortgage free years are years that you can spend that mortgage money on your extra special life!  

You’re on your way! What is your next step? Money. Now ask yourself, how can I possibly get this boat? How much do you have saved? How much will it cost? How many months of saving will it take to buy the boat? Is there something that I don’t want that I could sell to contribute to the boat, like a smaller boat or old tires in the garage? Keep asking how, how, how can I get that boat in a practical and responsible manner?  What resources can support me to get this boat?
  
Once you have a financial plan (see my blog on how to get a free car; it works for boats too), have the savings come out automatically from your pay. You’ll know every month that when a deduction towards your ULTIMATE dream comes off your pay, you’re getting closer to your dream. Be sure to get the best interest possible for your dream too. Shop around for the best interest rate to contribute to your goal. You’ll find yourself putting away your birthday money, working extra shifts, or cutting back on dinners out to get to your ideal future faster.  
Whatever you dream of when you’re alone, this is the day to make your very first step towards it. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.  

That doesn’t sit well with my love of money, and that is why I manage my own money.  I know at this point you feel queasy at the thought of going through company annual reports, balance sheets, and listening to conference calls, right?  Well it is so much easier than that.  What I do is find a mutual fund or index fund that I believe in and then I copy it and save the management fee.  I, for example, love dividend yield.  I’ll search for the best dividend funds or index funds and then rip off their top holdings for $5 a trade at my discount brokerage.  That way I’m in control of what I do with my dividends.  

There are many options when I’m in control of the dividends.  I could save the dividends up and buy another high yielding stock when I have enough funds to do so.  Which adds diversification to my portfolio for free.  I could also set the dividends up on a drip (dividend reinvestment plan) program.  My dividends would then buy me more stocks every quarter as they got paid out.  This way you naturally buy stocks higher and lower as the market changes over time. The indie term for this is dollar cost averaging. Quarterly I would receive more stocks that the following quarter would buy me even more stocks — and all for free.  This is a great way to accelerate growth over the long run. If I’m having a good month I might even pay myself my very own management fee and have an amazing dinner out with friends or family.  

If you share my love of dividends, look up the top holdings of XDV, the iShares dividend index. This ETF mirrors the 30 top stocks in the Dow Jones Canada Select Dividend Index.  You can grab the list of stocks right off their web site, plus their weightings.  To keep down my trading costs I buy just the top 15 stocks–making up 63% of the index. If you own them you’ll be participating when the index rises–in the last year it went up roughly 36%. You are given each stock’s weighting in the index which I could match, but with such small percentage differences between the top 15 I just buy them in equal weightings. If you did purchase the later you would have a 4.8% yield and some of Canada’s top dividend yielding companies.  When the dividend index is going up I know that I’m participating in the growth, and I have to keep checking back once a quarter or so to see if any of  my 15 have fallen off the list. I then simply make the appropriate trade to match the new top 15.  This is all on top of those sweet sweet dividends that are paying me quarterly.  

Make your own Mutual Funds and pay yourself instead of the managers.  You’ll love your money so much more.  
Dave

True wealth is not just having loads of assets but having the income streams that can come from assets.  That is why my philosophy of money and wealth is making sure that every asset I have pays me the highest level of income it can. 

The common line from financial gurus is that if you invest your money in an RRSP and that money is invested in the market, overtime it will go up and you’ll have a solid asset to retire on. We’ve all heard the line that if we invest $800 a month for 30 years at 8% growth we’ll have $1.2 million bucks and be wealthy! 

Well, what if I can’t get that 8% growth?  The last 8 years of growth were based on really cheap borrowed money and if that party is over how can I expect the market to keep growing at an average 8%?  I can’t. But what I can count on is an investment strategy that pays me streams of income.  That way I can at least count on the extra income if the market doesn’t keep going up. Extra streams of income will also improve your lifestyle now, so you don’t need to wait 30 years.

There are many investment strategies that can be based on streams of income.  One of them is buying monthly income or dividend funds or exchange traded funds (ETFs) in your portfolio.  Make sure that they are set up to buy more units whenever they get paid out. 

Building your own income-based portfolio is a great way to diversify.  After a quarter when your high dividend yielding stocks pay into your account you simply use that money to buy more shares that are also high yielding and high quality.  That way you are getting the market to pay for the porfolio additions.  Once you’ve owned them for a quarter they’ll start paying you so you can buy even more stocks.  In the long run this will really accelerate your growth instead of simply hoping that the market will do it for you.   

Investment properties are another smart stream of income that can pay your mortgage and free up cashflow.  By converting your underutilized basement into a rental apartment you can get your renter to help pay your mortgage.  To really help free up some cashflow look to buy a tri-plex. Rent two of the apartments out and live in the third one.  Work the numbers to see if you can live for free while building equity by paying down the mortgage. 

If you have a cottage, rent it out for one of the three months in the summer to pay for the property taxes, repairs, or the purchase of a new deck.  If you have an extra garage or parking space you’ll be amazed how much extra cash you can get by renting them out. 

Little jobs on the side really help out too.  I’m an extra on TV shows when I have free time. A day sitting backstage drinking coffee pays for my cell phone bill. Or a night of martinis!

I’m sure there are lots of ways that you can increase your income other than just the traditional pay cheque.  Something you do in your spare time can become a business, like for example developing websites, walking dogs, styling clothes or hair, etc., consulting, writing creative copy–make money from your passions!

Continuously bring in new streams of income and see what kind of true wealth it brings you.  Rental properties, high yielding portfolios outside your RRSP, and side businesses can give you the lifestyle now that you hope to have in 30 years.  Wealth really comes from multiple streams of income.

First, pick the ultimate car that gives you that butterflies in your stomach feeling when it drives by. If you don’t have the money to buy a new car, start with a used version that you can afford to pay with cash. With my strategy you can keep trading up until you get the new one that you’ve always wanted.  

Having cash to buy the car will get you a better price, especially in today’s market. The sweet spot for getting the best deal on a car is to get it when it is 1 or 2 years old. If you do decide to buy brand new try to get an employee discount or check to see if your employer is on a preferred vendors list for automotive manufacturers. This will get you a quick  3-10% off a new car which will help to offset the first year’s 20-30% depreciation.  

The next tip, and my favourite tip, is to only buy luxury cars. This goes against almost every financial talking head’s opinion but I like to think outside the box to get the most “shazam” from things I buy. Luxury cars hold their value longer, are always the top cars in the industry quality reports, and always have demand for resale and longer warranties. They also have more and better features, which makes ownership that much more enjoyable.  

When you’ve negotiated the best possible CASH price for the car, go to the bank and get an investment loan for the same amount as the price of the car. As an example let’s say that the car costs $60,000 including tax. You then get an invetment loan for $60,000 and re-invest it. Investment loan interest rates vary but you should be able to get one for prime plus .50% or 1%, which would make it currently 2.75 – 3.25% and an open variable loan amortized over 15 years. The huge benefit of the investment loan compared to a standard car loan or lease is that you can deduct the loan’s interest as an expense. You will also be paying a much lower interest rate compared to standard car loans due to the fact that the loan is pledged against the investments.  

The bank will secure the loan with the investments and you have two options for investing. The first and easiest is a monthly income fund. My favourite income fund is the BMO monthly income fund. The units currently are around $8.00 and it distributes .06 per unit a month.  .06 x 12 = .72 / $8.00 gives the fund distributions a 9% yearly yield.  $60,000 / $8 units would give you 7500 units that would generate $450 a month in distributions to cover the monthly loan payments which would be $421.60. The natural balance of the fund having 50% in bonds and cash and 50% in blue chip high yield dividends provides a natural cushion for any market corrections. Through the worst part of the last correction the BMO Monthly Income Fund didn’t drop nearly as badly as the overall market. It is also reassuring that through the last two years of financial and world economic downturn the BMO Monthly Income Fund didn’t decrease it’s .06 distributions. In fact its distributions have been .06 since 2002.  

The second option is for you to create your own monthly income fund within your own account. I love my money way too much to give up the 1.49% or $894 management fee for the fund, so I have purchased the following portfolio to pay down my investment loan:  

I’ve purchased roughly $5k in each trust. They are properly diversified among many sectors and are all high yielders with upside potential due to market recovery or commodity price increases, such as oil. The basket of trusts generate $6k a year or $500 a month in income to cover the cost of the investment loan. They have all appreciated in price as the market has risen and I expect the oil trusts to increase their distibutions as oil continues to recover.